Arnold, Craig Anthony. Wet Growth: Should Water Law Control Land Use?  Washington, D.C.: Environmental Law Institute, 2005

This book was written as a means to disseminate new ideas about the land/water interface in law and policy and provides an overview of the relevant issues, current trends toward integrating land and water controls, and prospects for further progress. The authors of this book describe the nature and costs of our currently fragmented management of land and water resources that results in unsustainable practices and suggest principles that should guide and direct our response to these problems.

Beatley, Timothy. Native to Nowhere: Sustaining Home and Community in a Global Age. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2004.

Tim Beatley draws on extensive research and travel to communities across North America and Europe to offer a practical examination of the concepts of place and place-building in contemporary life. He reviews the many current challenges to place, considers trends and factors that have undermined place and place commitments, and discusses in detail a number of innovative ideas and compelling visions for strengthening place. Planning magazine review here.

Maly, Michael T. Beyond Segregation: Multiracial and Multiethnic Neighborhoods in the United States. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005.

"Maly has created a marvelous resource for educators, advocates, and researchers alike. While acknowledging that 'urban space bears a racial stamp,' he examines the basis for stable integration in a variety of fascinating, ever-changing communities. His book will become an important reference point as we search for new models of integration in a society more diverse than any in history."
— Xavier de Souza Briggs, Associate Professor of Sociology and Urban Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Planners Library" review here.

Stephens, Richard B., Ed. International Planning Organizations. Victoria, B.C.: Trafford Publishing, 2005.

This directory contains more than 1,000 agencies, associations, institutes, schools and societies interested in urban and regional planning. It was initiated in the early 1980s as a reference for planners seeking to contact professional international planning organizations.

Stephens, Richard B., Ed. Plannerese Dictionary. Victoria, B.C.: Trafford Publishing, 2005.

An eclectic collection of unique and humorous words, phrases, and miscellany related to the built and natural environment. The entries range from a la mode, a reference to an extra touch to a plan, to zygocephalum, a measure of land based on the area of land a yoke of oxen could plow in one day. The dictionary began more than 20 years ago as the author collected the colorful vocabulary of urban and regional planning practice, public meetings and hearings, and environmental design education. Many of these words and phrases are common to designers; others are the word-smithing of numerous contributors and the author.

Ascher, Kate. The Works: Anatomy of a City. New York: Penguin, 2005.

This book contains everything you ever wanted to know about what makes New York City ( or any other city) run. When you flick on your light switch the light goes on — how? When you put out your garbage, where does it go? When you flush your toilet, what happens to the waste? How does water get from a reservoir in the mountains to your city faucet? How do flowers get to your corner store from Holland, or bananas get there from Ecuador? Who is operating the traffic lights all over the city? And what in the world is that steam coming out from underneath the potholes on the street? Across the city lies a series of extraordinarily complex and interconnected systems. Often invisible, and wholly taken for granted, these are the systems that make urban life possible.

Benedict, Mark A., and Edward T. McMahon. Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2006.

Benedict and McMahon advance smart land conservation: large-scale thinking and integrated action to plan, protect, and manage our natural and restored lands. From the individual parcel to the multi-state region, this book helps each of us look at the landscape in relation to the many uses it could serve, for nature and people, and determine which use makes the most sense.

Babbitt, Bruce. Cities in the Wilderness: A New Vision of Land Use in America. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2005.

Former Secretary of the Interior and Governor of Arizona Bruce Babbitt brings fresh thought to questions of how we can build a future we want to live in. He makes the case for why we need a national vision of land use. We may have a space program, he points out, but here at home we don't have an open-space policy that can balance the needs for human settlement and community with those for preservation of the natural world upon which life depends. A Q & A session by the author.

Florida, Richard. Cities and the Creative Class. New York: Routledge, 2005.

Florida outlines how certain cities succeed in attracting members of the "creative class"--the millions of people who work in information-age economic sectors and in industries driven by innovation and talent. Cities that succeed, Florida argues, are those that are able to attract and retain creative class members. They don't do this through the traditional strategies of tax incentives, suburban housing developments, and loose regulation, though; creative class members don't care about those details. Rather, they care about amenities and tolerance, and are drawn to cities with thriving bohemias and large gay populations. It is no coincidence, Florida asserts, that places likes Austin and San Francisco with their highly publicized open-mindedness and bohemia are at the forefront of the new economy, while cities like Detroit, in contrast, can't succeed unless they actively become a magnet for the creative class.

Goldstein, Barbara, ed. Public Art by the Book. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005.

A nuts-and-bolts guide for arts professionals and volunteers creating public art in their communities. Should a public art program depend on public funding, public-private partnerships, or both? What are the roles that citizens can play in their community's public art program? Can artists themselves ever initiate public artworks? With a wealth of wisdom on practical issues, this book offers information on a variety of topics such as public art planning, funding, and governance; establishing legal agreements with artists; and commissioning single artworks or creating comprehensive art programs. Planning magazine review here.

Loewen, James W. Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. New York: New Press, 2005.

"Don't let the sun go down on you in this town." We equate these words with the Jim Crow South, but the author demonstrates that strict racial exclusion was the norm in American towns and villages from sea to shining sea for much of the 20th century. Weaving history, personal narrative, and analysis, Loewen shows that the sundown town was — and is — an American institution with a powerful and disturbing history of its own, told here for the first time. In Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, sundown towns were created in waves of violence in the early decades of the 20th century, and then maintained well into the contemporary era.